The Birds Part 2

The Birds Part 2

Getting down to details.

Find three details that suggest that an evil force might be directing the bird to turn against people.  What do you imagine this force could be?

• “They’ve got reasoning powers,” he thought; “they know it’s hard to break in here. They’ll try elsewhere.

• Some bond had brought them together.

• “They kept coming at him from the air—noiseless, silent, save for the beating wings. The terrible, fluttering wings. He could feel the blood on his hands, his wrists, upon his neck. . . . With each dive, with each attack, they became bolder. And they had no thought for themselves. When they dived low and missed, they crashed, bruised and broken, on the ground.”

What might the phrase “the cloud divided again into five other clouds, spreading north, east, south, and west, and they were not clouds at all; they were birds,” suggest about what the birds might be doing?

• The birds are, indeed functioning with some sort of collective intelligence, suggesting some outside influence.

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How does the information we get from time to time about the BBC create suspense?

• The details provide enough information to describe the situation all over the country but there is not enough information to reach a conclusion as to what may happen or how the bird attacks might be stopped.

What details about the planes add to our anxiety?

• It would seem that not only are the planes ineffective in stopping the birds, but that the birds, in fact, are responsible for taking the planes down. This is an ominous detail.

Define the term Personification:

• Giving  human-like qualities to an inanimate object or non human thing.  

  
  

Find three examples of personification found in the short story, “The Birds” (That is, identify three examples of how the birds take on human qualities as they attack people in England.)

• But with each dive, with each attack, they became bolder.

• What could aircraft do against birds that flung themselves to death against propeller and fuselage but hurtle to the ground themselves?

• A black-backed gull dived down at him from the sky, missed, swerved in flight, and rose to dive again

What are the suggestions from the BBC news? Why is this difficult for people in this more modern world?

• The BBC suggests that people that live in houses must take precautions and work together with other people to make sure that the buildings are secure. They also state that everyone should stay inside at all times because the birds attack everyone in sight.

• People in the modern world are used to having dominion over the forces of nature. They are likely to have a more difficult time with the concept of bird attacks because they seem such an unlikely phenomenon.

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 In Nat’s opinion, who should be ‘in charge’? Why? What does Nat value?

• Somehow the thought reassured him. He had a picture of scientists, naturalists, technicians, and all those chaps they called the back-room boys, summoned to a council; they’d be working on the problem now. This was not a job for the government, for the chiefs of staff—they would merely carry out the orders of the scientists.

• Reason, science, intelligent people, not the military. They would just carry out the orders.

How do you feel about Nat’s continued attempts to conceal the extent of the danger from his wife? Is his behavior justified or not? Explain.

• On one hand Nat is probably trying not to panic his wife.

• On the other hand, by not telling her the truth, things might get even more horrifying when the inevitable actually happens.

  
  

What is suggested by this passage? "He thought of the farmer, Trigg, smiling at him from the car. There would have been no shooting party, not tonight."

• The suggestion is that the silliness of the shooting party was now in juxtaposition of the seriousness of the bird attacks; that not only were the Triggs not having their fun shooting the birds, the birds may have turned the tables on them if they had not taken precautions.

  
  

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